Motorcycle Keys in San Leandro

Losing the only key to a bike is worse than losing one to a car, because a bike cannot be left where it stands and dealt with next week. The moto rows at the San Leandro BART station. A carport behind a fourplex off Bancroft. A garage on a Washington Manor street. The lot at Marina Park at the end of a Sunday ride. A rack outside a shop on East 14th. Estudillo Security cuts keys at the bike for Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Harley-Davidson, Triumph, BMW, Ducati, KTM, Vespa and most scooters, from the ignition or from a lock code, with no trailer and no wait at a parts counter.

One person can push a motorcycle away, so ownership is settled before a tool comes out: identification against the registration or the title, and if the paperwork is upstairs in the flat, a photograph of it on your phone does the job. Then the ignition or the seat lock is read for its code and a blade is cut at the van. Bikes generally leave the factory with one key for every lock, so the new blade is tried in the ignition, the fuel cap, the seat and the helmet lock in turn, and any lock swapped out over the years is noted so you know where you stand. Immobilizer bikes need the chip enrolled beside the bike: Honda HISS, BMW EWS, the Ducati red-key arrangement and the newer keyless systems are all done at the curb. The fork lock is turned several times last of all, because it is the lock that binds first on a blade cut a hair shallow, and a shallow blade is corrected there and then rather than three days later.

Motorcycle keys are $115 to $269, counted per key, with the $89 service call inside the figure. A plain mechanical key for an older Honda or a scooter is $115. Transponder keys, and immobilizer bikes with no key at all where the module has to be read, reach $269. An ignition damaged past reading is quoted as its own line before any work starts. Weekends add nothing; only the evening and overnight additions apply, which put that first key at $160 after 8pm and $195 after midnight, and both are said on the call.

You call and say what happened and where: make, model and year, whether the bike has an immobilizer, whether any key still exists, and which garage, carport or lot it is standing in. The figure is said on the call with the unit it is counted in, per key. The van leaves Davis Street, and a text names the technician and gives a thirty-minute window; fifteen to thirty minutes covers San Leandro. Ownership first, then the blade, then the chip where the bike needs one, then the five locks tried in order: ignition, fuel cap, seat, helmet lock, fork. The receipt shows the figure from the call, sent from beside the bike.